French looked up puzzled.
“Goods?” he said wonderingly, and then added, as he met the Spaniard’s steady gaze, “Oh! ah! maybe I had, maybe I had,” and got up hastily.
Red caught hold of his hand.
“Take me,” he whispered.
French looked down at him and laughed as he stroked his honey-coloured beard.
“Come on, then, young ’un,” he said kindly.
Red whooped joyfully, and the big man and the little boy went to the door together.
Sue slipped her arm into French’s as he passed her.
“I’ll come a little way with ye, Ezekiel,” she murmured.
French put his arm about her and they went out.
Cip de Musset then rose to his feet.
“Are you coming, Captain?” he said, as he picked up his stick.
Anny caught her breath as she edged round behind the empty table.
Dick smiled sardonically.
“I shall follow,” he said.
Cip looked about him, and then smiled knowingly, and putting on his hat went over to the door, and out into the dark.
Blackkerchief Dick waited until he had gone and then turned and faced Anny, who was watching him fascinated. She felt that the time had come at last when she must shake him off for ever, or else go with him.
She had not heard from Nan since Red had taken her message, and she remembered the old woman’s promise as the one gleam of hope on her horizon, and every moment she expected to see her hobble into the kitchen, but it was getting late, and Nan had not come.
Dick walked over to the table behind which she stood and seated himself upon it without speaking.
The desperate light crept into the girl’s eyes again and she began to laugh. At least she must keep him in as good a temper as possible. She realised that. So dropping a curtsey she came a little nearer, and leaning over the table, asked him would he drink again. To her surprise he answered her very pleasantly that he would, and ordered rum.
Hal, who was still cleaning pewter, looked up from his work, and watched the little scene with a growing sense of despair.
To know that his love was lost to him was bitter enough, he told himself, but to see her happy in the Spaniard’s company, to see her hang upon the Spaniard’s words, and wait for his smile, was too much; he turned away quickly.
When Anny came back with the rum, Dick caught her wrist and held her firm with one hand while he raised the tankard to his lips with the other.
“Why are you not ready to come with me?” he whispered, as he set down the empty rumkin.
Anny began to laugh again.
“Lord! how you talk, Captain!” she said, trying to pull her arm from out his grasp.
The Spaniard’s grip tightened, and his smile grew more grim.
“Ann, this is not the time to jest,” he said, his voice growing softer and more musical at every word. “The brig waits us.”
Anny noticed that his voice was gentle and began to giggle again.
“Well, Master Dick, let it wait,” she said, tossing her head. “It can wait till Doomsday before you’ll see me aboard,” and she broke into a little nervous laugh.
To her surprise Dick joined in with her, and his long, low laugh echoed through the kitchen.
Hal looked up quickly and then turned away as though the sight had stung him, while Gilbot thinking that it was a signal for general joyfulness began to sing again:
“Pretty Poll, she loved a sailor,
And well she loved he——”
“Peace, damn you, peace,” roared Dick, suddenly gripping Anny’s arm so hard that she cried out.
Gilbot sat spellbound. Never had anyone so spoken to him in his life before and he was about to reply, but one look at the furious face of the little Spaniard calmed him and he subsided, muttering:
“No offensh, no offensh.”
This outburst had surprised Anny quite as much as Gilbot, and she looked at Dick with new fear. If only Nan would come, she thought, if only Nan would come!
At this moment the door opened and she turned eagerly, her eyes alight with hope, but it was Sue who came in softly and sat down quietly by the fireside opposite her uncle.
Dick turned his head without letting Anny go, and called for more rum.
Hal brought it without looking at either of them, and set it on the table.
The Spaniard drained it at a gulp.
“So you will not come with me, my beautiful one?” he said, still smiling, and leaning across the table towards the girl.
Anny looked at him and her spirits rose; he was only playing with her after all, she thought, as she saw his dark eyes smiling at her.
Yet she wished that Nan would come, although she was still vague in her mind as to what she expected the old woman to do when she did come.
“Nay, sir,” she said smiling, “not this time.”
The Spaniard laughed again.
“Not this time, my Ann? Not this time?” he questioned in an almost threatening note, which crept into his laughing tone.
“Here, boy, more rum,” he called over his shoulder.
Hal brought the liquor; the Spaniard drew his knife from his belt and held it up by the blade so that the flickering light fell on its jewelled hilt.
“’Tis a fair blade,” he said admiringly.
“Ay, it is,” agreed Anny, as she took the rum from Hal, who nearly cried out as he saw her bright, eager face lifted to the foreigner’s.
Dick took the tankard and drained it; then he began to smile again and to twist the knife through and about his fingers with that peculiar, smooth movement his crew knew so well.
The girl watched him for a second and then looked up at the clock. Why had not Nan come, she wondered?
“’Tis late, Captain, you will miss the tide an you do not hasten,” she said.
Dick’s eyelids dropped a little lower over his dark eyes, but his knife slipped through his fingers with a faster motion than before. Yet still he smiled, and when he spoke Anny thought that she had never heard so beautiful a voice.
“Ah! Senora, I would not leave the Island without that jewel which is mine by right,” he said softly.
“Oh! I had forgot,” said Anny, feeling in her apron pocket, “here is the ring, sir, I had it ready for you,” and she drew out a little paper packet, and unfolding it disclosed the flowered ring which he had given to her. She held it out to him.
Sue, who had been watching them, gasped at the sight of such a jewel, and looked at Anny wonderingly.
The girl was over-lucky, she thought.
Dick took the ring and slipped it over the blade of his knife; it slid up to the hilt and there stuck, a band of gold and gems round the blue steel.
“You give it back to me?” he said half to himself. “You give it back to me? No other woman has done so much,” he added suddenly, looking at her with that peculiar smile playing round his lips. Then his voice dropped, and he said, as though he had just realised something, “But to no other woman have I given so much,” and he laughed again unpleasantly and yet so musically—while the knife fairly sped through his slim, delicate fingers.
Anny began to feel fairly sure of herself. Why should she wait for Nan to defy him, she thought? Here he was, laughing and playing; surely there would be no danger in telling him the truth.
She leaned a little nearer to him and said very softly so that none of the others could hear:
“I would you would go, sir; you have your ring; what else remains?”
The knife paused for a moment in its unending circle round the thin white hand, the dark lids flickered and the thin twisted smile vanished, but only for a second; then the soft voice said smoothly:
“One thing, Ann, my Ann of the Island, one thing remains that must come with me; that is my wife.”
Anny began to laugh again nervously, but conquering herself she said sharply:
“Pest on ye, sir, will ye never stop teasing a poor girl’s life out? I tel
l you, I hate you, sir.”
Dick laughed softly, and there was a new note in his voice which no one could mistake, and Anny drew back a little.
“You said so once before, sweet Ann,” he said, “and I did not believe you then, as I do not now.”
Anny felt strangely irritated by his attitude and bending still closer to him, said in a sharp half-whisper:
“Oh! but, sir, you should; a man who woos unloved is a foolish sight in my eyes.”
Dick slipped his arm round her waist and held her fast; he was beginning to realise that he had at last come up against a will which would not bend before his own, and a wave of uncontrollable anger surged over him; his smile almost vanished for a moment and the knife quivered in his hand.
Anny took his silence as a sign that her words were prevailing with him and determined to play her last card.
“I love another one,” she said softly, drawing away from him as she spoke.
A ripple of laughter burst from the Spaniard’s lips and he held her closer to him.
Hal looked up at the sound with a fierce light in his eyes; he made a step forward, but drew back again almost immediately.
“The lass likes it,” he thought mournfully. “The lass likes it.”
Yet he could not keep his eyes off the two.
Anny pointed to the knife, which was hanging before her, and looked into the dark smiling face so near her own.
“Put by thy knife, sir,” she said pettishly. “It fears me.”
Once again Dick laughed.
“Nay, ’tis a beautiful thing,” he said, holding it in the palm of his hand, the point towards her, “Think you not so?”
The girl shrank away and he bent towards her. “You said you loved another, Mistress,” he said suddenly, fiercely. “Is it truth?”
Anny smiled at him fearlessly.
“Ay, sir, truth!” she said quietly.
The Spaniard’s smile returned, and the blue knife with the gold band on it seemed suddenly to have become part of his hand as with a deft movement he laid the bright steel against the girl’s bosom.
Hal and Sue leaned forward to see this new foolery of the Captain’s, each thinking that his love-making was a little too open to be decent.
“Oh! my sweet one, how fair my blade looks against thy white breast,” said Dick, his eyes holding Anny’s. “You gave me back my ring, but I am generous; see, I give it back to you.” With the last words the knife seemed to suddenly quicken and spring from his hand, and Anny staggered back from the table, her hand clasped to her breast.
“Oh! how you hurt me, sir,” she said simply, the smile still on her lips and her cheeks still bright with the excitement of a moment before. Then her eyes closed and she dropped on to the floor, the little thud her body made on the stone flags echoing all round the kitchen like a thunder-clap, and the knife Blackkerchief Dick held in his hand was red blood up to the hilt.
He looked at it dazedly, a horrified expression on his usually inscrutable face.
“Dead!” he said hoarsely, his voice sounding old and strained in the intense silence. “She is sure to be dead; we have never struck twice,” but his voice sank to a whisper, “at last we have struck too soon.”
He passed his hand over his forehead and gazed fixedly in front of him; some of the blood which had spurted off the knife on to his hand now smeared his forehead. Save for this, his face was ashy pale—then with slow, deliberate steps he walked to the door, opened it, and went out.
For a second the kitchen was in perfect silence, and then a scream as high and despairing as a woman’s rang out loud and clear in the suddenly cold room, and Hal Grame, his boyish face distorted with rage and horror, flung himself across the kitchen and out after the Spaniard.
The night was an exceedingly dark one, and Nan Swayle stumbled once or twice over the loose stones in her path, as she strode over the rough track which ran from her shanty to the Ship.
Many strange thoughts came to her as she passed on through the darkness, her tall, gaunt figure straining against the wind, and her ragged garments flying like streamers out behind her.
The bitter memory of her last encounter with Pet Salt still rankled with her, and the thought of Anny’s enforced marriage to the Spaniard made her hate the other old woman more deeply than before. She had sworn to Anny that she would prevent her sailing with Dick, and it was to fulfil this promise that she was striding through the night.
To prevent Dick from carrying off Anny.
Nan had thought over her self-allotted task very carefully, and to her there seemed but one way to accomplish it. She had decided to take that way. And as she hastened on, her thin brown fingers gripped her long staff fiercely, and from time to time she stopped to feel the heavy round stone which was bound to the top of it, making a once harmless walking-stick a formidable weapon.
On she went, her head held high, and her sharp eyes fixed ahead as if she were seeking to pierce the blackness which closed in all around her.
“They do not sail till eleven,” she muttered, “and she would not go at once. I shall be in time to catch them as they come out of the yard. Ay, that is it, as they come out of the yard; it is dark there,” and, mumbling to herself, she clambered through a gap in the hedge and stumbled out into the Ship lane.
She had now a very little way to go and her grip on her staff tightened as she hurried on.
A sharp bend in the road brought her in sight of the Ship. She could see the lights from the kitchen gleaming through the trees. She pressed on for a few more yards and then stopped suddenly, and holding her breath, stood rigid for a second, listening.
There was silence everywhere and the old woman shifted uneasily.
“No noise?” she muttered. “No noise? What has come to the Ship on sailing night that all should be so still?”
Keeping her eyes fixed on the lighted window she hastened on to the yard gates. There she paused again. The Ship was silent as before, and then, as she stood there watching, the door opened and a slim figure stood silhouetted against the bright background for a second and then staggered out towards her.
Without further thought Nan strode forward, her staff upraised.
Hardly had she moved, however, when Hal’s terrible scream rang out through the open doorway.
The old woman sprang forward, a faint inkling of what had happened flashing through her mind.
Dick did not see her until she was almost on top of him. He came across the yard dazed and horrified, conscious of one thing only—that in a fit of rage he had killed the one woman he had ever loved.
The knife, still sticky and uncleaned, hung from his fingers, and the light from the window fell upon it as Nan came up to him.
When he saw her dark form and shining eyes rising up before him out of the darkness he started back, bringing his hands up before his face.
Nan seized her opportunity and without a thought of the possible consequences dropped her staff and darting forward wrenched the knife out of his nerveless grasp and plunged at his throat.
Nan was a strong woman, and the knife glancing on the Spaniard’s collar-bone turned and slipped down into his neck, cutting the jugular vein.
A choking exclamation, “Donna Maria,” fell from his lips, a rush of blood stifled all other words, and he dropped on the dry stones as dead as the girl he had left in the Ship’s kitchen.
Nan heard them and laughed bitterly.
“Maria!” she muttered. “You may well call on her. Here, this is thine; take that with thee to hell, you slithering coward,” and bending down she slipped the twice-stained knife into the slim white fingers.
Then she straightened her back and looking up, became aware of Hal Grame’s tall figure standing not two feet away, his eyes fixed on her.
They stood quite still for several seconds, neither speaking, and then Gilbot hurried out of the door. The shock had sobered him for once in his life.
Seeing Hal, he broke out excitedly.
“Have you
seen him, lad? Have you caught him? Where is the ruffian?”
Still Hal did not speak, but catching the old man by the arm he pointed silently to the still figure at their feet; the stream of light from the open doorway fell across the Spaniard’s face and the white hand which held the knife.
Gilbot bent down for a moment and when he looked up his face was even paler than the boy’s.
“Who?—What—what happened?” he whispered.
Hal looked silently at Nan.
The old woman faced him without flinching.
“As I come up the road, I see him come out o’ the door waving his arms, and then suddenly drop like a sack; when I got up to him he was like this,” she said. “He killed hisself, I reckon,” she added carelessly.
Old Gilbot looked down at the huddled form.
“’Twas just what I feared when I come to the door,” he muttered. “Lord! what things men do because o’ wenches—and in my house too. What’s to happen now?”
Chapter XXV
Ten minutes later, Joe Pullen, who stood on the beach watching the Anny’s red lantern swing to and fro in the sharp breeze, was startled by the sudden appearance of Hal at his elbow. The boy’s face showed livid in the faint light, and his eyes seemed to have turned dead and dull like those of a corpse. When he spoke, his voice was strangely high and uncontrolled.
“Where’s Blueneck?” he said nervously, clutching the other man’s arm.
Joe jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where a little group of men could just be distinguished in the darkness.
Hal gasped with relief and turned to go to them, still keeping his hold on Joe’s arm.
The elder man suffered himself to be dragged after the boy without a murmur. He saw that something had happened, but until Hal volunteered the information, he was not the one to enquire for it.
Hal pushed unceremoniously through the little crowd, still pulling Joe behind him.
“Master Blueneck, will ye come up to the Ship at once?” he said, tapping the Spanish sailor on the shoulder and speaking in a whisper. Something in his tone caused the man to start back away from his fellows and step aside with the boy, and after a few muttered words of conversation the three set off up the lane at a brisk run.
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