So once again was smoke and flame and roaring battle; broadside for broadside we fought them until night fell, a night of horror lit by the quivering red glare of the guns, the vivid flash of pistol and musket and the pale flicker of the battle lanthorns. And presently the moon was casting her placid beam upon this hell of destruction and death, whereas I lay, famished with hunger and thirst, staring up at her pale serenity with weary, swooning eyes, scarce heeding the raving tumult about me.
I remember a sudden, rending crash, a stunning shock and all things were blotted out awhile.
CHAPTER XIV
TELLETH HOW THE FIGHT ENDED
When sight returned to me at last, I was yet staring up at the moon, but now she had climbed the zenith and looked down on me through a dense maze, a thicket of close-twining branches (as it were) whose density troubled me mightily. But in a little I saw that these twining branches were verily a mass of ropes and cordage, a twisted tangle that hung above me yet crushed me not by reason of a squat column that rose nearby, and staring on this column I presently knew it for the shattered stump of the mizzenmast. For a great while I lay staring on this (being yet much dazed) and thus gradually became aware that the guns had fallen silent; instead of their thunderous roar was a faint clamour, hoarse, inarticulate, and very far away. I was yet wondering dreamily and pondering this when I made the further discovery that by some miraculous chance the chain which had joined my fettered wrists was broken in sunder and I was free. Nevertheless I lay awhile blinking drowsily up at the moon until at last, impelled by my raging thirst, I got to my knees (though with strange reluctance) and strove to win clear from the tangle of ropes that encompassed me; in the which labour I came upon the body of a dead man and beyond this, yet another. Howbeit I was out of this maze at last and rising to my feet, found the deck to heave oddly 'neath my tread, and so (like one walking in a dream) came stumbling to the quarter-ladder and paused there awhile to lean against the splintered rail and to clasp my aching head, for I was still greatly bemused and my body mighty stiff and painful.
Looking up after some while I saw the Happy Despatch lay a helpless wreck, her main and mizzenmasts shot away and her shattered hull fast locked in close conflict with her indomitable foe. The English ship had run us aboard at the fore-chains and as the two vessels, fast grappled together, swung to the gentle swell, the moon glinted on the play of vicious steel where the fight raged upon our forecastle. Mightily heartened by this, I strove to shake off this strange lethargy that enthralled me and looked about for some weapon, but finding none, got me down the ladder (and marvellous clumsy about it) and reaching; the deck stumbled more than once over stiffening forms that sprawled across my way. Here and there a battle lanthorn yet glimmered, casting its uncertain beam on writhen legs, on wide-tossed arms and shapes that seemed to stir in the gloom; and beholding so many dead, I marvelled to find myself thus unharmed, though, as I traversed this littered deck, its ghastliness dim-lit by these flickering lanthorns and the moon's unearthly radiance, it seemed more than ever that I walked within a dream, whiles the battle clamoured ever more loud. Once I paused to twist a boarding-axe from stiffening fingers, and, being come into the waist of the ship, found myself beside the main hatchway and leaned there to stare up at the reeling fray on the forecastle where pike darted, axe whirled, sword smote and the battle roared amain in angry summons. But as I turned obedient to get me into this desperate fray, I heard a low and feverish muttering and following this evil sound came upon one who lay amid the wreckage of a gun, and bending above the man knew him for Diccon the quartermaster.
"How now, Diccon?" I questioned, and wondered to hear my voice so strange and muffled.
"Dying!" said he. "Dying—aye, am I! And wi' two thousand doubloons hid away as I shall ne'er ha' the spending on—oh, for a mouthful o' water—two thousand—a pike-thrust i' the midriff is an—ill thing yet—'tis better than—noose and tar and gibbet—yet 'tis hard to die wi' two thousand doubloons unspent—oh, lad, I parch—I burn already—water—a mouthful for a dying man—"
So came I to the water-butt that stood abaft the hatchway, and filling a pannikin that chanced there with some of the little water that remained, hastened back to Diccon, but ere I could reach him he struggled to his knees and flinging arms aloft uttered a great cry and sank upon his face. Then, finding him verily dead, I drank the water myself and, though lukewarm and none too sweet, felt myself much refreshed and strengthened thereby and the numbness of mind and body abated somewhat.
And yet, as I knelt thus, chancing to lift my eyes from the dead man before me, it seemed that verily I must be dreaming after all, for there, all daintily bedight in purple gown, I beheld a fine lady tripping lightly among these mangled dead; crouched in the shadow of the bulwark I watched this approaching figure; then I saw it was Joanna, saw the moon glint evilly on the pistol she bore ere she vanished down the hatchway. And now, reading her fell purpose, I rose to my feet and stole after her down into the 'tween-decks.