CHAPTER XIX
CONCERNING THE PRINCESS DAMARIS
For a while she stood looking down on me, and I, meeting that look,glanced otherwhere yet, conscious of her regard, stirred uneasily sothat my irons rattled dismally.
"Sir," says she at last, but there I stayed her.
"Madam, once and for all, I am no 'sir!'"
"Martin Conisby," she amended in the same gentle voice, "MasterPenfeather telleth you refused the honourable service I offered--I prayyou wherefore?"
"Because I've no mind to serve a Brandon."
"Yet you steal aboard my ship, Master Conisby, you eat the food mymoney hath paid for! Doth this suffice your foolish, stubborn pride?"Here, finding nought to say, I scowled at my fetters and held my peace,whereat she sighed a little, as I had been some fretful, peevish child:"Why are you here in my ship?" she questioned patiently. "Was it forvengeance? Tell me," she demanded, "is it that you came yet seekingyour wicked vengeance?"
"Mine is a just vengeance!"
"Vengeance, howsoever just, is God's--leave it unto God!" At this Iwas silent again, whereupon she continued, her voice more soft andpleading: "Even though my father had ... indeed ... wronged you andyours ... how shall his death profit you--?"
"Ha!" I cried, staring up at her troubled face, "Can it be you knowthis for very truth at last? Are you satisfied of my wrongs and knowmy vengeance just? Have ye proof of Sir Richard's blacktreachery--confess!" Now at this her eyes quailed before my look andshe shrank away.
"God forgive him!" she whispered, bowing stately head.
"Speak!" says I, fiercely. "Have ye the truth of it at last?"
"'Tis that bringeth me here to you, Martin Conisby, to confess thiswrong on his behalf and on his behalf to offer such reparation as Imay. Alas! for the bodily sufferings you did endure we can neveratone, but ... in all other ways--"
"Never!" says I, scowling. "What is done--is done, and I am--what Iam. But for yourself his sin toucheth you no whit."
"How?" cried she passionately. "Am I not his flesh--his blood? 'Twasbut lately I learned the truth from his secret papers ... and ... O'twas all there ... even the price he paid to have you carried to theplantations! So am I come pleading your forgiveness for him and for me... to humble myself before you ... see thus ... thus, upon my knees!"
Now beholding all the warm beauty of her as she knelt humbly before me,the surge and tumult of her bosom, the quiver of her red lips, thetearful light of her eyes, I was moved beyond speech, and ever sheknelt there bowed and shaken in her mute abasement.
"My Lady Joan," said I at last, "for your pure self I can have noughtto forgive--I--that am all unworthy to touch the latchet of your shoe... Rise, I pray."
"And for--my father?" she whispered, "Alas, my poor, miserable father--"
"Speak not of him!" I cried. "Needs must there be hate and enmitybetwixt us until the end." So was silence awhile nor did I look up,dreading to see her grief.
"Your face is cut, Martin!" said she at last, very softly, "Suffer thatI bathe it." Now turning in amaze I saw her yet upon her knees,looking up at me despite her falling tears: "Wilt suffer me to batheit, Martin?" says she, her voice unshaken by any sob. I shook my head;but rising she crossed to the door and came back bearing a smallpannikin of water. "I brought this for the purpose," says she.
"Nay, indeed, I--I am well enough--"
"Then I will make you better!"
"No!" says I, angrily.
"Yes!" says she patiently, but setting dimpled chin at me.
"And wherefore, madam?"
"Because I'm so minded, sir!" So saying she knelt close beside me andfell a-bathing my bruised face as she would (and I helpless to stayher) yet marvelling within me at the gentle touch of her soft hands andthe tender pity in her tear-wet eyes. "Martin," says she, "as I do thuscherish your hurts, you shall one day, mayhap, cherish your enemy's--"
"Never!" says I. "You can know me not at all to think so."
"I know you better than you guess, Martin. You think it strange belikeand unmaidenly in me that I should seek you thus, that your name shouldcome so readily to my lip? But I have remembered the name 'Martin' forthe sake of a boy, long years since, who found a little maid (she wasjust ten year old) found her lost and wandering in a wood, very woefuland frightened and forlorn. And this boy seemed very big and strong(he was just eleven, he said) and was armed with a bow and arrows 'toshoot outlaws.' And yet he was very gentle and kindly, laying by hisweapons the better to comfort her sorrows and dry her tears. So hebrought her to a cave he called his 'castle' and showed her a realsword he kept hidden there (albeit a very rusty one) and said he wouldbe her knight, to do great things for her some day. Then he brought hersafely home; and he told her his name was Martin and she said hers wasDamaris--"
"Damaris!" said I, starting.
"Often after this they used to meet by a corner of the old park wallwhere he had made a place to go up and down by--for six months, Ithink, they played together daily, and once he fought a great, roughboy on her behalf, and when the boy had run away she bathed herchampion's hurts in a little brook--bathed them with her scarf as thusI do yours. At last she was sent away to a school and the yearspassed, but she never forgot the name of Martin, though he forgot herquite ... but ... you ... you remember now, Martin--O, you remembernow?" says she with a great sob.
"Aye, I remember now!" quoth I, hoarsely.
"It is for the sake of this boy, Martin, so brave, so strong, yet sovery gentle and kindly--for him and all he might have been that I prayyou forego your vengeance--I beseech you to here renounce it--"
"Never!" I cried, clenching my shackled hands. "But for my enemy thisboy might now be as other men--'stead of outcast rogue and scarredgalley-slave, he might have come to love and win love--to have knownthe joy of life and its fulness! Howbeit he must go his way, rogue andoutcast to the end."
"No!" she cried, "No! The wrong may be undone--must--shall be--woundswill heal and even scars will fade with time."
"Scars of the body, aye--belike!" said I, "But there be scars of themind, wounds of the soul shall never heal--so shall my just vengeancesleep not nor die whiles I have life!"
Here for awhile she was silent again and I saw a tear fall sparkling.
"And yet," said she at last and never stirring from her humble posture,"and yet I have faith in you still for, despite all your cruel wrongsand grievous suffering, you are so--young, headstrong and wilful andvery desolate and forlorn. Thus whiles I have life my faith in youshall sleep not nor die, yet greatly do I pity--"
"Pity?" says I fiercely, "You were wiser to hate and see me hanged outof hand."
"Poor soul!" she sighed, and rising, laid one white hand upon myshackled fist. "And yet mayhap you shall one day find again your sweetand long-lost youth--meanwhile strive to be worthy a sorrowing maid'shonest pity."
"Pity?" says I again, "'Tis akin to love--so give me hate, 'tis thingmost natural 'twixt your blood and mine."
"Poor soul!" she repeated, viewing me with her great, calm eyes albeittheir lashes were wet with tears, "How may I hate one so wretched?"Here, seeing mayhap how the words stung me she must needs repeat them:"Poor wretched soul, thou'rt far--far beneath my hate."
"Belike you'll come to learn in time!" says I, beside myself. At thisI saw the white hand clench itself, but her voice was tender as everwhen she answered:
"Sorrow and suffering may lift a man to greatness if he be strong ofsoul or debase him to the brute if he be weak."
"Why then," says I, "begone to your gallants and leave me to thebrutes."
"Nay, first will I do that which brought me!" and she showed the key ofmy gyves.
"Let be!" I cried, "I seek no freedom at your hands--let be, I say!"
"As you will!" says she, gently. "So endeth my hope of righting agreat wrong. I have humbled myself to you to-night, Martin Conisby. Ihave begged and prayed you to forego your vengeance, to forgive theevil done, not so much for my father's
sake as for your own, and thisbecause of the boy I dreamed a man ennobled by his sufferings and onegreat enough to forgive past wrongs, since by forgiveness comethregeneration. Here ends my dream--alas, you are but rogue andgalley-slave after all. So shall I ever pity you greatly and greatlydespise you!"
Then she turned slowly away and went from me, closing and locking thedoor, and left me once more in the black dark, but now full of yetblacker thoughts.
To be scorned by her! And she--a Brandon!
And now I (miserable wretch that I was) giving no thought to thepossibility of my so speedy dissolution, raged in my bonds, wastingmyself in futile imprecations against this woman who (as it seemed tome in my blind and brutish anger) had but come to triumph over me in myabasement. Thus of my wounded self-love did I make me a whip ofscorpions whereby I knew an agony beyond expression.
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