“Now,” observed Vytal, turning to Marlowe, “you know my men at last.”
“But I do not understand—” began the poet.
“Nay, not the details. Nor I. He will explain later; see, he returns even now to do it,” and Roger Prat stood once more before them. He was holding his sides and shaking with silent laughter, after the repressing of which he told an extraordinary tale.
“I heard the whistle,” he said, “and stood on guard. Master Pilot, being bound, I now suppose, by Hugh, could give no outcry save one of much profanity. But then a pistol-shot rang out, and I started forward a pace with some alarm. No doubt it grazed Hugh’s elephantine ear. A stimulus—a mere stimulus! But as I started forward—and for that step, captain, you should put me in irons, I do assure you—as I started forward carelessly, the hatch was flung open, and, before I could turn, I was seized from behind. I thought Roger Prat was then no longer Roger Prat, but Jonah ready for the whale. Yet I struggled, and being, as you know, of some bulk and weight, succeeded in pushing my captor backward to the hatch. The next instant one of us tripped, and I found myself bounding downward along the ladder, at the bottom of which, thank Heaven, I lay down comfortably on the man who had fallen behind me. For him ’twas a less desirable descent.” And again Prat shook convulsively with laughter, his elbows out and hands pressed close against his sides. “And then,” he resumed, with an air of bravado, “I overcame the score.”
“Overcame the score!” exclaimed Marlowe.
“With wits, Master Poet. ‘’Slid!’ cried I. ‘Why treat a comrade thus? In the name of Sir Walter, ’tis most unreasonable.’ ‘Which mean ye?’ they cried. ‘There are two Sir Walters!’ ‘Sir Walter St. Magil, of course,’ said I. ‘Here I come from the Admiral to give ye aid, and find myself hurled headlong to the nether world. The pilot’s killed, the plan defeated, and now we are like to decorate the yard-arm. There’s forty men concealed on the orlop deck, awaiting us unkindly.’ At this ’twas all I could do to look mournful and keep from laughing outright, for the knaves fell back terror-struck and babbled their fears to one another. Then I hung my head as if in thought. ‘I have it!’ cried I, at last; ‘we’ll play the part of brave defenders. There’s one trusts me, for I gained his confidence at St. Magil’s suggestion. ’Tis Captain John Vytal, the devil’s own.’ (Oh, forgive me, sir, for those dastard words. Yet they added force to my parley.) ‘A ready-witted fellow,’ I heard one say, and ‘’Tis a chance,’ remarked another gull. Thus they assented, and we have twenty brave souls, Captain Vytal, new recruited. Hang them, I say. Hang the lot at sunrise, except one, and him you cannot. ’Tis the one I landed on in my descent. His neck is broke too soon and cheats the gallows. Forgive me for that—oh, forgive me for that. Ha, ’twas a comical proceeding.” And again the fit of merriment seized him, exhaustingly, so that at last, for very mirth, he sat down on the deck, laughing until it pained him and the tears rolled down his rubicund cheeks.
The laughter, being of the most contagious, irresistible kind, spread to Marlowe. “Thy mirth,” said the poet, “is like to an intrusive flea. It invades the inmost recesses of our risibility, and tickles us into laughter.”
The sun, just peering over the horizon, saw an unusual sight across the water. First, a man in the stern of a solitary ship bound like a bale of cloth and propped against the bulwark under the eye of a giant who yawned sleepily, and, stretching a pair of great arms abroad, spoke now and then in monosyllables to a robust seaman on duty at the helm; then, a corpulent soldier, shaking like an earthquake, and sitting on the deck amidships, his short legs wide apart; next, a face of sensitive poetic features not made for humor, but now submitting to it as though under protest, yet very heartily; and, lastly, the tall, stern figure of an evident leader, who stood near the others, but seemingly aloof in thought, being, for some reason, little moved by the gale of mirth.
The dawning light of the next day showed a picture widely different in conception.