“When can ye take him aboard?” demanded the Querulous Voice.
“Why, the tide wun’t sarve for ’arf an hour yet. Plenty time to finish my pipe.... An’ talkin’ o’ ghosts, there was my mate Jerry Banks as was knifed aboard the Belle Fortun’ ... pore Jerry’s ghost used to come an’ sit o’ nights perched aloft on our main-yard an’ mew like a cat! Aye, mew ’e would, an’ carry on that mournful ’twas ’orrible, mates——”
“Hold your tongue!” cried the Querulous Voice.
“Aye, we doan’t want none o’ your ghosts, do us, lads?” quoth the Sullen Voice; whereupon was a mutter of hearty assent.
“Why, very well,” answered he of the hearty voice, spitting, “only if you’d a-heered the ghost o’ pore Jerry ... used to mew like any cat, it did, only more dismal-like.... I never ’eered nothing in all my days so shiversome and——” The Hearty Voice ended in a hiss of breath suddenly in-drawn and thereafter was utter silence, a strange, unnatural stillness wherein it seemed that none moved or breathed; and then rose a hoarse, stammering whisper:
“Lord ... O Lord a’ mercy! What’s yon?”
Turning heavy head, Sir John saw about him a huddle of crouching men who all peered in the one direction, heard an incoherent, passionate muttering that changed to a groan, a gasping cry, and a man rose to his knees with rigid arms out-thrust, staggered to his feet and leapt down the grassy steep; hereupon the others awoke to sudden action; ensued a desperate scrambling, a wild babblement, a thudding of desperate feet, and Sir John lay staring on the empty dark alone save for the horse that cropped the grass near by. And then he too saw a vague and awful shape outlined in pale fire that flitted unheard upon the gloom and vanished, only to reappear as suddenly, gliding back up the slope to where he lay. And watching the thing approach, Sir John felt his flesh creep and he shivered with a growing dread that mocked at sanity and reason until he strove desperately against his bonds, but, finding this vain, lay still again, watching. On it came, looming more gigantic and frightful with every yard, nearer still, until he could distinguish the monstrous head surmounted by widespreading, fiery horns, nearer, until from this awful shape a whispering voice reached him.
“Be that Sir John Dering? Be ye there, sir?” Then the dreadful thing swayed, stooped upon itself, thudded to earth, and in its place was a tall, broad-shouldered man who, running forward, knelt and began to cut and loose off Sir John’s galling bonds. “Gagged ye too, ’ave they!” quoth the voice, and next moment Sir John, relieved of the gag, reached out fumbling hand and spoke:
“Mr. Potter—O George Potter, though you come like a demon o’ darkness, a very devil, yet no angel could be more welcome!”