Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  With that she was gone, disappearing into the void of blackness so silently that men were found thereafter who swore that she had vanished into the air itself. But the Russian lieutenant who had been reloading his pistols methodically stepped to the rail and leveled his weapons at the two streams of phosphorescence that moved away from the galley's side where the Moslems were swimming.

  Edwards however struck up his pistols with the flat of his rapier.

  "Would you fire on a woman? Let them have their chance, man! Faith," he laughed, "this night is out of the very pages of the Thousand and One Nights. Look yonder!"

  The Moslems on the poop had lost heart at the downfall of their leader, and the rein himself, cloaked and hooded and striding with the pride that is greater than defeat and disgrace, had descended the ladder and thrown down his weapons in front of Paul Jones. The others followed his example, hearing that the American had offered them their lives. Some fifty surrendered and were astonished past belief when they were not slain out of hand in spite of promises.

  Jones issued strict orders that none of the prisoners should be harmed, and they were herded in the waist of the galley. Edwards, cupping his eyes in his hands, could no longer make out Hassan and Kalil swimming toward the shore. But he thought he could see two shadows moving away into the mists.

  He wondered-for Edwards was always cool and meditative of the why and wherefore of things that happened in the Black Sea-whether Hassan had come down because he had understood the order to bring the grenades, or whether he had tried to reach Kalil.

  Pierre bent over Dmitri, who lay curled up, one arm gripping his slashed abdomen. The other hand stabbed the air in the direction of the cabin entrance. The Greek seemed to want him to go in there.

  "I'm counted out, Pierre," he muttered through set teeth. "Search the poop. Hassan keeps treasure-on galley. Loot, for all."

  Pierre's memory was stirred by half-forgotten words; Kalil-she had talked of the riches on this galley. And Dmitri had hazarded his life to break down the door.

  The two were unnoticed in the corner by the wheel, while the Russians were gathering the prisoners together and combing out the forecastle and lower deck, and the Cossacks under Jones and Edwards were endeavoring to make sail. The flare had gone out, leaving the deck in gloom. But across the Liman the sky was growing less opaque, and the outlines of the shore and fortifications were taking shape.

  The Greek gripped Pierre's knee convulsively.

  "Sant' Nicolo! Alexiano will follow me-with short shrift. We-bothrenegados in Algiers. Moslems we were, by --! And the Moslems will seek him out and put an end to him. The followers of the prophet have marked their bullets for those who go over to the giaours."

  "Aye, aye," said Pierre, and Dmitri's torrent of words went on.

  "Kalil talked with Alexiano after he took command. He is afraid. He promised that he would do what he could to hamstring the Russians if Hassan would spare his life. Now he is more afraid, because the Russians have flayed Hassan. He knows the Moslems will find him." A gulping groan choked the words in his throat. "The dogs! The sons of swine-I did not fear them."

  Inarticulate curses bubbled the blood on his lips, and Pierre hastened away to seek Ivak. He found the Cossack inspecting Hassan's sword by the lantern, and after a glance around to see that there was no fighting and nothing to be done except by sailors, the Provencal led the way into the poop cabin, cutlass in hand.

  The passage was empty and most of the compartments dark. They stumbled over a pile of quilts left by someone roused from a sound sleep, perhaps Hassan himself. At the end of the passage was a glow of ruddy light, and Ivak halted to listen and make sure that no one was breathing near at hand.

  Then he strode through the opening and kicked against a solid teak door to make certain no one lurked behind it. The compartment had no other opening and the air was heavy with the smell of sandalwood and aloes.

  "Allah!" he said feelingly, as he caught sight of the scimitars and tulwars piled in the corner and the round shields hung on the bulkheads. "Hai, here is a blade made in Damascus; here is the saber of a mameluke-aga-mark the crescent of emeralds-and here-may the - fly away with me else is the sticker that belonged to Gherai Khan. He used to be master of the Crimea."

  While Ivak was turning over the trophies, Pierre opened one or two of the sandalwood boxes and poked a speculative finger into the rolls of silk so delicate in texture that he could see through it. A rattan chest pleased him better, being filled with gold plate of every description. Ivak joined him and picked up some of the pieces eagerly.

  "This is from the table of a Roman duke. See the crest! And this noggin was fashioned in Stamboul. Yonder's a Persian thing with writing on it. Ekh, Hassan took plunder from all places. What a fellow! He-"

  They stared in mute amazement at the glowing jewels in an ivory casket that Pierre opened. Even in the dull light of the lantern, precious stones gleamed with a life of their own. Pierre had never seen such things, but Ivak knew the value of plunder like this.

  "You could match stones with the caliph of grand Cairo," he muttered, "and have enough left over to buy Egypt."

  His eyes yearned toward the weapons while Pierre's fingers itched to bear off and hide some of the gold.

  "In other years I heard of this," he whispered. "In the galleys of Algiers they told me of this ship of Hassan's. Bon sang! What will become of all this?"

  Ivak scratched his head with the hilt of his saber.

  "'Twill go into the breeches of the grandees-Potemkin and his monkey Nassau and the rest. May they pare the 's hoofs!"

  For a moment temptation seized them and they did not look at each other. "Nay, 'tis lean Paul's prize," swore Pierre suddenly. "We will tell him-"

  "After locking it up," assented the Cossack-who had been examining the door, which had a serviceable iron lock with a key in place. Evidently Hassan or Kalil had been sleeping in the cabin when the galley was boarded. "I promised the lads they would find loot-"

  A sudden lurch of the ship made him lose his footing and stagger against the chests.

  By mutual consent they turned to the door, and Ivak locked it carefully, thrusting the key into his pocket. In the dark passage he stopped abruptly, pulling Pierre to his side. They could hear a man moving toward them cautiously, and others breathing near at hand. Ivak's blade slithered from his scabbard and he crouched, motioning for Pierre to do the same. They could not tell who the others were in the poop, and if they had been seen handling the riches in the stern cabin. Ivak was ready for a knife thrust at his throat, if they had been spied upon by a Greek or Syrian who would most certainly expect that they had carried off on their persons the pick of the loot.

  His keen ears caught the click of a pistol hammer pulled hack and then a man's knees blundered against his shoulder, and a hoarse voice muttered feelingly-

  "your eyes!"

  Pierre seized the Cossack's sword-arm, and stood up. He had heard that expression in the past, though he did not know what it meant, and invariably it was used by men of one nation.

  "That is an Englishman," he whispered, adding, "Is that Lieutenant Edwards? 'Tis Pierre Pillon who speaks, and the sotnik Ivak is here."

  "What the are you two about?" grumbled Edwards. "Are the cabins cleared? Well, bear a hand then, at these nine-pounders in the poop. Pillon, you can lay a gun. Come with me-'ware my left arm. There's a bit of shrapnel in it."

  Sailors were trying to bring one of the small guns to bear on the shadowy outline of a felucca that had opened fire on them with grape. The other vessels were closing in on the galley. Matters could not very well be worse for them.

  Some of the Russians on the foredeck, while fighting was still going on at the poop, had slipped the cable without waiting for orders. The result, not at first perceptible, was that the galley had drifted with the wind until it brought up in the mud. Edwards thought that they were now within musket shot of one of the shore batteries.

  Owing to the confusion among
the Turks, this battery had not opened on them; but the nearest feluccas were aware by now that a small party had boarded the galley and captured it. Their escape was cut off and in another hour it would be full daylight, when they would be blown out of the water if they did not surrender.

  One of the shallops was still beside the galley, lashed fast by a sailor. Edwards had offered to fight the galley, if Jones would take to the shallop and make off with a boat's crew. In the smoke and the dense mist that hung like a veil over the Liman he could still escape. But Jones had refused to leave his men behind.

  The American had ransacked the vessel for another anchor and cable on the chance of working the galley off-without finding anything that would serve his purpose.

  Now he was throwing overside everything movable, to lighten ship.

  "'Tis the end of our luck," groaned Pierre.

  He thought ruefully of the treasure he had had in his hands a moment ago, and searched the uttermost limits of a vocabulary enriched by years in a slave galley to express his opinion of Russian seamanship, while Ivak listened in approving silence.

  "Allons, mes camerades," he said grimly, seizing the first of the powder sacks that were fetched up from below, "stand by to show these how honest Christian mariners say their prayers."

  For half an hour the dozen cannon of the galley roared defiantly at the growing array of Moslem small craft which took position around Hassan's ship. Hampered by the dense mist and the danger of firing on their comrades, the Turks held off-content to wait for daylight when they could see their target clearly. Pierre worked at the nine-pounder until the first shots from the shore battery smashed into the galley, and a chain shot struck the gun, dismounting it and killing three of its crew. He was hit by flying splinters in the chest and thigh, and, after a glance at the useless piece, made his way to the quarterdeck with difficulty.

  He limped to the wheel where a man stood motionless, leaning on the spokes. Pierre looked around.

  They were still aground. The mist, like a gray curtain, shut them in. The deck was stained and slippery, and the men who labored on it stumbled over the wreckage of gear and the bodies of their mates. At first Pierre thought that the prisoners had been wiped out by the Moslem fire. Then he saw that they had been set to work in the foredeck, where the glow of flames showed through the companion.

  Another burst of the heavy guns of the battery swept over the galley, too high to do much damage. The red flashes seemed to Pierre to come from almost over the bow.

  Jones came aft and halted by the men at the wheel. He was hatless and in the dim light his face showed, lined and haggard; his eyes, probing into the mist, were steady.

  In the walk of the man, in the poise of the head was the indomitable courage of ten years ago. It was part of his nature, this stubbornness.

  To cease firing and call for quarter would mean the slaughter of all his men except the officers by the Moslems, who were half mad with rage, in any case, after the burning of the ships the day before.

  Of this, however, Pierre did not think. He spoke to the admiral, shyly, looking up from bandaging his thigh.

  "Tout va bien, monsieur. All goes well-eh?"

  The American glanced around with a quick smile and responded in French.

  "What is your name, my lad? Pierre? Well, Pierre, so you don't want to strike our colors?"

  "But no-no!" Pierre mustered up his courage, and quivering with delight, said the words that had been on the tip of his tongue for days. "Ali, monsieur, it was warmer than this on the old Richard, was it not? Sacre nom d'un Chien, but it was an affair, that. Me, I was there."

  Jones walked to the rail and came back, glancing from the sails to the dark patch that was the battery.

  "I was in the marine guard on the poop, monsieur," went on Pierre anxiously, "and you-you said, 'All goes well, Pierre.' You remember, perhaps?"

  "Aye," said Paul Jones, smiling again at the eagerness of the sailor. "I think you handed me a musket-"

  "Ti ens! It was so. You remember everything." The big Provencal grinned and looked around to see if others had heard what the admiral said, forgetting that they could not understand. It occurred to him to tell the Ameri can what they had found in the cabin, but he thought that it did not matter, when they might be blown out of their skins in another moment.

  So he waited, nerves strained, for the next discharge from the battery. No doubt the Turks were lowering the muzzles of the cannon.

  The firing grew heavier all around them, and he heard the rattle of musketry. A confused shouting arose on shore. Edwards came up and remarked that the fort on the hill was firing.

  The two officers stared into the thinning mist with growing curiosity. In the direction of the battery the tumult increased and they could hear shouted commands and the tramp of marching battalions.

  After a while Edwards looked at his watch. It was nearly five o'clock and somewhere the sun was rising. No feluccas were within sight and the men at the galley's remaining guns had ceased firing for want of a target. All Otchakof seemed to be in motion around the battery, but only stray bullets whined around the galley. Unable to make out what was on foot, they went forward to the bow, where the flames were now under control.

  "Here they come, sir," called out Edwards suddenly, "to board the galley."

  Out of the mist a horseman splashed through the rushes, turning toward the stranded vessel as soon as he saw it. When the water was up to his knees he stood up in the stirrups and howled like a wolf. A dozen Cossacks who had been looking on with interest gave tongue immediately.

  Straining his eyes, Pierre made out that the rider wore a black sheepskin hat and a red sash. Unless he was mad this must be a Cossack sotnik, riding out of the Turkish fortifications. Doubtless a trick.

  "I have it, sir," chuckled Edwards. "Faith, we're all dead, and this is Charon's blood brother, come to usher us across the Styx."

  But Jones motioned impatiently for silence and Ivak came running up. He hailed the rider, who roared back a response.

  "That is a sotnik of the Don regiment, your honor," Ivak informed Edwards. "He presents Little Father Suvarof's compliments to his excellency, Admiral Jones, with the request that his excellency cease firing on the bastions, which are now in the hands of the Russians."

  It was long afterward that Pierre understood what had happened. Suvarof had crossed the Boug when the fleet engagement was at its hottest. He had attacked the advanced posts of the Turks with the regiment of cavalry that had crossed with him, and had driven them back into the trenches before Otchakof by evening: by then his full division was on the peninsula, tak ing position in front of the trenches. A firm believer in opportunity, Suvarof had attacked the trenches at dawn when Jones's raid had drawn the attention of Hassan and his men to the flotilla. Suvarof himself had led the bayonet charge that took the water batteries in flank and drove the garrison up into the Otchakof wall and the fort on the hill.

  It was the Moslems in retreat that Jones had heard when he was rowing down the Liman, and the campfires he had noticed were those of Suvarof's division.

  The courier in the mist shouted again, and Ivak began to chew his mustache and swear under his breath.

  "That dog brother says, sir," he explained to the officers, "that the cavalry is in the field now, and the navy can go home and sleep-if we can sail that far without running aground."

  Jones and Edwards glanced at each other with understanding. Ivak was from a cavalry regiment.

  "Tell him," instructed the American gravely, "that we will land men to show them how to turn the guns in the batteries to bear on the town."

  Ivak brightened perceptibly and the Cossack splashed away with a wave of the hand. Tired as he was, Paul Jones called for volunteers to go with him into the bastions, and, wearied beyond belief, all those who heard tumbled into the shallop when he took the tiller again.

  Chapter X

  Matched pearls for a woman's throat-gold dinars for the fingers of the aged men-a robe of
honor, of samite and silk for the councilor. When the city was taken many were found to plunder the bazaar. Yet, one there was who rode on to another place saying, "What is profit without honor? "

  It was many days before Pierre Pillon saw Paul Jones again. And it was more than a few hours before the least wounded of those on the galley could sleep. Jones had left Edwards in command of the prize, and when the Turkish flotilla withdrew to the protection of the fort and the open sea, the Russian lieutenant was sent to the Vladimir for a spare anchor, cable, food, and a surgeon.

  Edwards had been told by the American to let no other officer take over the galley, and under no circumstances to permit it to be burned as Nassau had burned the frigates. After the decks had been cleared, and the se riously wounded attended to, and the rest had had a meal of sorts, Edwards worked the galley off the mud and made sail as best he could to the anchorage of the Russian fleet.

  When the wounded had been sent ashore, and the prisoners with a guard, only a half-dozen Cossacks were left on the galley.

  All available anchorages around the jetties and the warehouses being taken, Edwards sailed up the river Dnieper. The slender galley that had been the delight of Hassan of Algiers now lay at anchor beside the barren steppe.

  Ivak and Pierre did not let the Englishman sleep until they had admitted him into the secret. Unlocking the door and leaving Pierre there to keep watch, Ivak displayed the weapons and the chests with the pride of a discoverer.

  "It is all for the admiral," he explained. "We have kept it hidden."

  Edwards inspected the plate curiously and lingered over the jewels with a soft whistle of amazement. Reluctantly he put them back in their places, for he was human and under his fingers lay surety of a life of ease.

  "By right," he observed, "the half of this should go to Admiral Jones and his men, and half to the Crown. But Potemkin will get his paws on it, and then-" He shrugged. "He may take it on the plea that he is sending it to Tsarkoe-seloe, but her Majesty will never see these trinkets."

  The Cossack glanced at him thoughtfully, and when he locked the door of the cabin he put the key back into his pocket. He and Pierre had expected that Edwards might suggest some way of hiding the treasure, which was beginning to loom large now that the fighting was at an end.