Too amazed to act, I could only watch her ripe young figure, which her dress set off to its full beauty, creeping warily forward towards me. Very quietly I sunk lower into the shadow of the bulwarks to watch what she would do.
Every now and again she looked round in some new and graceful posture to see if she were watched. At last she reached the foremast, to which was fixed the mutilated image of the Virgin and Child, and there she fell upon her knees and began to pray in a low earnest voice that I could just hear.
'Holy Mother of God,' she said, 'for the last time I beseech thine aid to support me across the dark waters, to guide me through the forest, to bring me safely to Nombre de Dios, that thy loving worshippers may come at my word and destroy the heretics that would plunder the treasure which his most Catholic Majesty would devote to thy service, saving only, if it be not sin, Captain Francisco Draque, whom it were a pity to kill, and the sad-faced man who has warded me so courteously, and who, I think, is half in love with me.'
Then she rose and walked with desperate quickness towards the side, but ere she had gone three steps I had leaped down into the waist, and she was struggling frantically in my arms. I was resolved to stay her from the wild purpose her brave spirit was bent on. As she writhed in my grasp I remember being rather afraid that she should fall into the hands of the Cimaroons than that we should be betrayed to the Spaniards.
Like an eel she strove to get free, her dress giving her perfect freedom to strain every effort. So tenderly did I feel towards her for the sake of her heroic attempt that I was only thoughtful how not to hurt her, but it was misplaced kindness, for suddenly she slipped from my loosened grasp. In a moment she was at the bulwarks, poising herself for a spring into the water, when suddenly she gave a low cry of horror and sprang back into my arms as I rushed to her side.
In an extremity of abject terror, to which her resolution was suddenly changed, she clung about me, trembling from head to foot.
'Save me, Señor, save me!' she gasped, as she sank down clasping my knees wildly. 'O God, O Sancta Maria! see what is coming,—O God, what will they do to me! I cannot bear it. Save me, Señor, save me!'
So distractedly did she cling to me that I was obliged to lift her in my arms before I could get to the side to see what had frightened her, and then I could not wonder how her courage had melted, for I saw a sight that made my blood run cold.
Close to the ship and moving swiftly towards her swam over half a score of black woolly heads. The ghostly moonlight glittered white on the long wake that stretched behind each, and on their rolling eyes, and, worst of all, on a grizzly knife which each held in his grinning teeth. Like some hellish monsters engendered in the foul womb of the sea they came on with lusty strokes, silent, sure, and determined.
There was no time to fetch my caliver or wake the guard had I been willing to do so. But this was far from my wish; for I feared, had they known the negroes' purpose and seen the terror of their pretty prisoner, they would have dealt more hardly with our allies than the general would have liked. Moreover, to be plain, I had a still stronger reason for what I did; for I could not bear to think that those rough men should see my beautiful captive so scantily yet withal so prettily clad as she was. So, drawing my rapier, I sprang to the gangway, for which they were making.