“I must find out about my friend,” said Margaret. “I can’t leave him as he is.”
“Bring him back, Ed. Make him come back,” called the boatmen.
“Now you go back,” Ed repeated, grinning, “or I’ll have to put you.” He looked up suddenly at the forest. “My Santa Marta!” he cried. “Into the boat. Here they are.” He thrust Margaret backwards towards his fellows, and instantly bent down to shove the boat clear. Both were up to their knees in water at the boat’s side. Some one, it was the man who had worked in Tolu, leaned out and grabbed at Margaret’s collar.
“Look out, sons!” cried Tucket.
At the instant a swarm of men burst from the edge of the forest. One or two of them who were mounted charged in at a gallop. The others ran down, crying, firing their guns as they ran. The water about the boat was splashed violently, as though some one flung pebbles edgewise from a height. Margaret drew his sword and turned. He saw a horse come down within twenty yards of him. Some one shouted “Crabs” derisively. Half a dozen fierce faces seemed staring on him, rushing on him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. There was a crack of guns. Men were falling. Then the wildness passed; he was calm again. A Spaniard, the rider of the fallen horse, was in the water, thrusting at him with a lance, calling him cuckold and bastard in the only English words he knew. Margaret knocked the lance aside with difficulty, for the man was strong and wild. His thoughts at the moment, for all the danger, was “I can’t be both.” He wondered in that flash of time whether a man could be both. All the beach seemed hidden from him with smoke and fire and the hurrying of splashing bodies. Where was Ed gone? It was all smoke and racket. He was being hit. Something struck his left arm. Striking at random at a voice in the smoke, his sword struck something. He dragged his sword back, and slipped with the effort. He was up to his waist in water for an instant, below the smoke. He saw men’s legs. He saw water splashing. Then there was smoke everywhere. Smoke of a hundred guns. A racket like the chambers shot off at the end of Hamlet; exactly like. A wave went into his face. Some one fell across him and knocked him down again. It was Ed.
“Hold up, you fool,” Ed cried. The voice was the high, querulous voice of the hurt man.
“You’re hit, Ed,” he said, catching him about the body. His arm stung along its length with the effort. “Where are you hit, Ed?”
“Abajo. Vete al carajo, hijo de la gran puta. Cabron! Mierda!” The words came out of the smoke like shots. The roar of the battle seemed to be all about him. He backed, staggering, to get out of the smoke. A half-tamed horse’s teeth ripped the sleeve from his hurt arm, knocking them both down again. Some one jabbed him with a lance in the shoulder. He struck the horse as he rose half choked, still clutching Ed. The horse leaped with a scream. The smoke lifted. It was all bright for a moment. A mad horse; a trooper swearing; Ed’s body like a sack with blood on it; a smoke full of fiery tongues. There was the boat though. Then the smoke cloaked it. Bullets splashed water in his face. The butt of a flung lance banged him on the side of the head. The horse reared above him, screaming, floundering in foam, then falling heavily. He was almost out of his depth now, half swimming, half dead, lugging a nether millstone. Blood was in his eyes, his sword dangled from his wrist, his free hand tried to swim. He clutched at the boat, missed, went under, gulping salt. He clutched again as the white side slid away. His fingers caught upon the gunwale, near the stroke’s thwart. He made the boat sway to one side a little. “Trim her,” said Tucket, as he hauled, face forward, on the warp. He did not look round; merely trimmed her mechanically, flinging the warp’s fakes aft. “Away-hay-hay-i-oh,” he sang. “Lively, Jude,” said another. “If you fire like you load, your bullets has moss on them.” Two of them were firing sharply, lying behind the backboard. “Cut,” cried Tucket. There was a shock of chopping on the gunwale. A hand sculled way upon her with the steering-oar as the sail filled. The midship oars were manned.
“Give me a hand here, please,” said Margaret weakly. “Catch Ed.”
“Lord. I thought you were in,” said Tucket. “Up with him. Ed’s gone. Don’t capsize the ship, you. I’d forgot you two.”